Potatoes

Ah, potato rolls. Those old-fashioned, reliable, slightly squishy American treasures are making a slow comeback, satisfying bread cravings beyond crusty baguettes or sourdough slices. I’ve long known about using potato in baked goods because my mom made us a chocolate cake for each and every birthday that was made with grated potatoes. She called it her “secret ingredient” and we soon realized not to reveal it to friends because it sounded pretty odd.

You say potato, I say yes please. Fried, baked, and Hasselback’d, there are no shortage of recipes that feature this root vegetable. But just like space travel, there’s so much more territory to explore. As someone who must steer clear of most wheat and processed products, I’m always on the lookout for a substitute that adds crunch where croutons and toasted baguettes no longer can.

Q: What are some uses for sweet potato flour? Either sweet or savory. Curiosity got the better of me (for a change) and I brought sweet potato flour home but now I’m not sure what to do. Found a pancake and a crepe recipe, but still looking for more. Sent by Susana Editor: Readers, what do you make with sweet potato flour?

Potatoes have played second fiddle to meaty main dishes and seafood suppers for far too long. Today it’s their time to shine as the star of the dinner (and breakfast!) plate. Filled with quality substance from vegetables, grains, and even meat, stuffed potatoes are a meal all their own. And a darn tasty one at that! Here are 12 savory and sweet meal-worthy stuffed potatoes you’ve got to try this fall. They are comfort food extraordinaire.

Before rice crackers with tuna tartare and platters of canapes, there were pigs in blankets. A classic finger food that not only saved snack time, but in many ways, acted as the gateway to more mature appetizers, teaching early eaters just how playful and filing small bites of food can be. A very important lesson, indeed.

Mashed potatoes should be so good they don’t even need a drizzle of gravy. That means they need to be light and fluffy, creamy and rich, and decadently buttery. For so many of us, Thanksgiving just isn’t Thanksgiving without them. So how do you master the mash? Here’s everything you need to know to achieve mashed potato greatness. The best mashed potatoes start from the source: the potatoes themselves.

Q: Can sweet potatoes be peeled and cut ahead of time (day before) to use in a baking recipe with sliced apples? Sent by Rose Editor: I love when I have the chance to prep ingredients in advance, but I haven’t tried prepping and storing sweet potatoes ahead of time. I would imagine they would need to be stored in water and certainly refrigerated. Read more: What’s the Difference Between Yams and Sweet Potatoes Readers, what do you think about this?

Summer means lots of outdoor meals and gatherings, and it also means that potato salad starts showing up at BBQs, potlucks, parties, and camping meals. The delicious, classic potato salad combination of potatoes and creamy mayonnaise will never go out of style, but sometimes we may crave a lighter version, especially when it’s being served next to heavier dishes, like ribs or burgers.

Hasselback potatoes are the new baked potato. They are no mere side dish! I say we load these babies up with everything from melty cheese to crispy bacon to creamy avocado sauce. And then put an egg on top, because why not? Those accordion slices are just begging for a slice of cheese. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. Cheddar, mozzarella, smoked gouda — if it melts, it’s in.

Don’t you love the smell of a baked potato right out of the oven? Nowadays, you can go beyond just salt and butter and stuff one with an abundance of ingredients. You can try hummus, pulled pork, apples, and even sauerkraut. Read more: How To Bake a Potato: Three Easy Methods With our recipe roulette, the possibilities for how to stuff your baked potato are endless. All you have to do is hit pause whenever you like on the video and let the universe decide your ingredients.

Along with hard-boiled eggs and a pot of beans, the one thing I always make at the beginning of the week is a big batch of baked sweet potatoes. Of all the prepped foods that make the week a little easier, this vibrant orange root vegetable is the MVP. It is a blank canvas full of potential for a simple side dish that’s ready to be eaten as is; a quick fix to bulk up salads, grain bowls, and eggs; or, with a simple upgrade, it can be a meal in itself.

Here's everything you need to know about preparing sweet potatoes.

After a (much-too-long) hiatus, I’ve reintroduced tater tots to my meal plan. And you know what? I think they taste even more amazing now than they did when I was a kid. All I had to do was change the way I cooked them. To cook a batch of irresistibly delicious tater tots, you’re going to need more time on the clock than what’s instructed on the bag.

If you’re looking to incorporate more veggies into your diet, you may be focusing on how you can add them to dinner. But if you’ve got a sweet tooth, may I suggest working them into dessert, too? I know this isn’t a new concept. Our uber-popular double chocolate zucchini bread packs in the nutrients, but tastes just like a decadent chocolate loaf cake. We’ve stuffed grated beets into chocolate beet cupcakes, and of course eaten our fair share of classic carrot cake.

Many of us are eating sweet potatoes throughout the year — baked, turned into noodles, or just boiled and mashed — but I’m declaring November the official start of roasted sweet potato season. When you roast sweet potatoes, their flesh becomes sweeter, burnished by the hot oven, and the flesh tenderizes into the most delicious bites ever.

Every year my family’s Thanksgiving spread absolutely needs to include a creamy, marshmallow-topped sweet potato casserole. It’s essential. I’ve made a lot of variations of this iconic dish, and over the years I’ve learned that what makes it so great isn’t the topping — it’s the way you treat the potatoes. This is the easy, but important trick you need to know.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons you might want to skip the traditional sweet potato casserole topping of caramelized, gooey marshmallows. Maybe you’re welcoming a vegan or vegetarian to the table, or you want to eat less sugar during the holidays, or maybe you’re one of those folks who just doesn’t like marshmallows! Luckily, sweet potato casserole doesn’t hinge on a marshmallow topping.

Instant potato flakes aren’t exactly high on most lists of pantry essentials. You may keep them around in chilly months as a quick and easy shortcut to creamy mashed potatoes, but they’re probably more likely collecting dust on supermarket shelves. What you might not know, though, is that these little flakes — made most often from either russet potatoes or Yukon Golds that have been cooked, mashed, and dehydrated — can work their magic in a surprising amount of dishes.

You don’t have to hit the drive-thru to get your fill of hot and crispy fries. All you need to do is try one (or more!) of these five tricks to make your next batch of at-home fries taste just like your favorite fast food joint. Part of what makes McDonald’s and Wendy’s fries so dang amazing is that they are super generous with the salt shaker. If salty fries are your thing, these fast food fries are top of the class.

If you’re celebrating Friendsgiving this weekend and were tasked with bringing a side dish, I’ve got just the thing for you: hot honey sweet potatoes. Roasted with butter and brown sugar and then drizzled with a spicy jalapeño-infused honey, these are not your Aunt Rita’s sweet potatoes — and that’s exactly the point. Friendsgiving is a more relaxed version of Thanksgiving.

Are you roasting sweet potatoes to go with dinner? Before you get started, there’s one more thing you need to do: Add one or two extra to the baking sheet! It takes almost no extra work, but pays big dividends later. Here are five reasons to always roast extra sweet potatoes. When it comes to roasting sweet potatoes, you have a choice to make: Do you want to cut up the potatoes? You’ve got four options. Whole, with the skin on. Cut into wedges (skin on or off).

Piled high, topped with a pat of butter or savory gravy, mashed potatoes are hard to resist. But this Thanksgiving essential has the power to go way beyond just a comforting side dish — we’ve got five ways to prove it. The key to making any of these dishes shine, of course, is making a really great batch of mashed potatoes.

Can you ever have too many mashed potatoes? Probably not, but since we aren’t one to assume, here’s a scalable formula that helps you figure out how to make mashed potatoes for a party of one all the way up to a table of 12. Get fancy with added garlic, herbs, butter, or different types of cheese at your own discretion. This formula is based on one serving and for a basic potato + milk or cream + cream cheese situation that results in rich, creamy perfection .

Base: Roasted tiny potatoes Middle: Homemade bolognese Top: Shredded kale and Parmesan One of my favorite ways to do lunch (and dinner, for that matter) is to go bowling. Pick a bowl, and start piling. Layer grains at the bottom and leftover roasted veggies in the middle. Or turn it upside down and start with broccoli slaw and add some chicken. At the end you’ve got a one-dish meal, built from this and that — a creative improvisation rather than a recipe.

While I don’t know anyone who considers leftover sweet potatoes a problem, I want to share a tip for giving them a spectacular second life. Three words: whipped sweet potatoes. Here’s what to do: Peel and puree any leftover cooked sweet potatoes and whisk them in a pan over medium heat with a generous amount of butter and a splash of heavy cream. Sprinkle in a couple pinches of salt and you’ve got whipped sweet potatoes.

Maybe you forgot to use low-sodium broth. Maybe you forgot that you were using something salty like bacon or ham in your soup and you threw in an extra pinch of salt. In either case, you now have a pot of too-salty soup — I was guilty of this just last night when making a big pot of turkey meatball soup, but luckily it was flavorful enough that I could dilute it with water.

Q: I am mystified that I have seen scores of videos of someone preparing homemade potato chips that appear to be light in color and crispy, but, I cannot seem to mimic the final result. I have tried different frying temps between 325 and 375; I have tried different oils: vegetable, canola, and peanut. I have tried different thicknesses of potato slices; I have even wasted my time blanching the slices in vinegar solution which does help give a lighter color end result, but saps the flavor.

While potato salad is a year-round dish, it really becomes a staple as the weather turns warm. Whether you’re going vinegar-y or creamy, warm or cold, the order it’s put together makes the difference between a potato salad with great textures and flavors, and one that is just ho-hum. If you remember the right order to do things, you can easily throw together a tasty potato salad with what you have on hand. Multitask. Start by boiling your potatoes.

Sweet potatoes. Orange-fleshed root vegetables great for baking and terrific sprinkled with brown sugar, right? Well, sometimes. Usually the qualities that distinguish a sweet potato from their not-even-related-cousin the yam are subtle. But when you’re trying to recreate a recipe made specifically with sweet potatoes, that difference becomes huge.

Q: We don’t always finish the bag of potatoes we buy and end up having to throw half of them out as they start sprouting very rapidly.Is there a way I can keep them from sprouting so fast?Sent by I’ChingEditor: I’Ching, the key to keeping potatoes fresh is twofold: Keep them dark, and keep them cool. Also, don’t store them near onions, bananas, or other fruit — this will encourage them to sprout faster.

New potatoes, another teeny tiny vegetableNew PotatoesThese are immature potatoes that get thinned out early in the season order to make room for the rest of the potatoes to mature. New potatoes aren’t a variety by themselves, but are simply the baby version of any potato a farmer grows. In fact, those being sold as “baby” potatoes are the same as new potatoes, or slightly more mature.

Q: I just got a hand-held immersion blender for a holiday gift, and I’m quite excited about it.I’ve heard that it’s the best tool for making incredibly light whipped potatoes — but I can’t find a good recipe! Can you help?Sent by RobEditor: Rob, we’ve written about why mashed potatoes and blenders don’t mix, but we were mostly referring to more powerful countertop blenders (and food processors).

The first time I had mashed potatoes with rutabagasIn Poland, combining these two ubiquitous winter vegetables is called Brukiew z Ziemniak, and in Scotland, this dish is called “Neeps and Tatties.” It was terrific, and I thought to myself, “Well, now maybe I’ll stop overlooking the poor rutabaga!”Mashed Potatoes with Rutabaga, or Neeps & TattiesIngredients1 large rutabaga, peeled and cubed2 russet potatoes, peeled and cubed2 to 3 tbsp.

Sweet potatoes are a vegetable-hater’s dream: what could be better than a potato that tastes like candy? But sweet potatoes aren’t that way to begin with. They need a little extra help to transform them from starchy to sweet – and we’re not talking about marshmallows or maple syrup, either!Sweet potatoes are mostly starch, just like any other energy-storing tuber. And they taste about as good as any other raw tuber until you start cooking it!

When we’re making a big batch of mashed potatoes, it’s awfully tempting to just throw them in the blender instead of going to the trouble of mashing them by hand. If you’ve ever actually done this, you’re probably jumping out of your seat and waving your hands in alarm right now. What’s the fuss? Well, here’s the scoop:Pureeing your potatoes in a blender or food processor seems like a good idea at first.